


The client

by Tyellas



Series: Lab T-4 [12]
Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Giles wasn't born yesterday, Mid-Movie Spoilers, Mild Sexual Content, Poignant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 23:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13154685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: In a quiet moment, Giles shares a portfolio of his artwork with the creature. Everybody’s a critic…





	The client

It was early afternoon. In Giles' studio, the light was as good as it got for getting some work done. At his easel, Giles heard his smartest cat hiss before a squelching tread entered. Their houseguest was on the prowl again.

Giles reached for Elisa’s egg timer and set it: 20 minutes. He spun around on his drawing stool to face the unique amphibian man. Amazing, he thought, how quickly you got used to your own personal Universal monster-movie feature each day.

“Good afternoon. Elisa’s asleep, I take it. I hope you’re not too bored.” The creature uttered a yawp. Giles decided his expression was expectant.

“Believe me, I’d rather be drawing you, but I’m back to the grindstone here. The things I do for filthy lucre. Don’t look. You’re a pure young fish.” Giles covered the drawing board with his hand. So, naturally, the water-critter looked at the motion, then the drawing.

Giles gave up and let him. He had to admit, he was pleased with how quickly he’d dashed it off. It had been like the old agency days. Back then, however fast he worked was never fast enough: not stopping to think led to his best work. For this paying job, he was inking his pencils of a plump, middle-aged woman, with a bouffant and a perky smile. She was holding up a package. “Gout medicine ads,” Giles sighed. “It’s come to this.”

Slowly, the creature signed, _E-L-I-S-A friend_.

It was amazing, what Elisa had taught it. And what it could do. With patient gratitude, he stroked hair off his forehead and said, shaking his head, “Yes, Elisa is a friend. But this isn’t her.”

The creature didn’t seem to take this on. He blinked and repeated: _E-L-I-S-A friend._

The penny dropped for Giles. “A friend _for_ Elisa? Oh, you mean Zelda. Hm. Not a bad idea for this piece, I saw her once, she has good lines—” Then, Giles stopped. “Oh, Jesus. You’re having the, the, the,” Giles spun one finger around one ear. “The thinking. The rational. Abstract concepts to, to objects. Like a person. Oh, Jesus.”

Giles whirled back and pulled out his sample portfolio. “And here I’ve been showing you crap!”

He slid out a completed painting, a very handsome blonde man, beaming beside a car.  He held it up next to his face. “One of my better pieces. Do you think,” Giles asked, hopefully, “there’s any resemblance?”

The creature shifted from foot to foot, squelching again. “In the bone structure, at least,” Giles hinted. The creature yawned.

“Maybe more in this one. It’s more rugged.” Giles swapped over for another man, this one in a white shirt, with a cleft chin and a brown crew-cut, holding up a fishing rod.

The creature backed off and hissed, everting all his gills and fins.

Giles shrugged. “Everybody’s a critic.” While a strong reaction to a work was better than no reaction, Giles kept it neutral with the next picture. He took out a lush gouache painting: a beribboned bouquet of orchids.

The creature liked this, maybe. He looked around to make sure the fisherman was gone, then leaned in. After an unblinking moment, he uttered a long sound. Giles heard, in it, why Elisa had called him the loneliest creature in the world.

“No, no. I’m sorry. Don’t, don’t be like that. How about this.” Giles changed again, this time offering a brunette woman with a pageboy, showing off long legs in stockings. He remembered the praise from Bernie, back at the agency, that had led him to add it to the portfolio: _nobody draws a clean girl like you do._ Giles said, wryly, “Pity everything changed. This company, they’re doing pantyhose now. Stitching the hose to the underthings, if you please. To say nothing of photo ads.”

The creature’s brow area lifted in appreciation. He signed, emphatically, _E-L-I-S-A!_

“You don’t say,” Giles murmured. He opened a different portfolio. The sketch he showed was half-finished, demure, a dream on the page. It was a slim nude girl from a life drawing group ages back.

The creature chirruped, trilled, and flashed blue. _E-L-I-S-A. MORE._

On the one hand, it was nice to find out what really hit the spot for a client. On the other hand, Giles had heard sloshing and marine drama early this morning, when he was trying to get to sleep. For all that the sounds weren’t human, their rhythm evoked noises overheard in Giles’ decades of varied lodgings. _It couldn’t possibly_ , he’d thought. _She couldn’t possibly._

Now, this exchange had shown that Elisa was right about the creature being far more than an animal. It made it easier for Giles to move along to, _well, why not?_   The pair of them, the creature and Elisa together, were showing Giles how wrong he could be, himself – or how unexpectedly right.

The egg timer rang. Giles said, indulgently, “Listen to that, time’s up. Naptime, or swimtime, or whatever it is.”

The creature stayed stuck on the last sketch. Giles offered it to him. “Now, I don’t usually do comps,” Giles lied, he was the softest touch in the world with clients. “But for you, I’ll make an exception.”


End file.
